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Saturday, March 16, 2013

My Math Block Mini-Series {Part 4}

So this mini-series is not so mini anymore! (I think I need to change the name!!) The more I type, the more I realize that there is much more to say and explain than originally intended. Thanks for sticking with me! If you missed any of the posts, click below to go back:

4. Count by days and/or weeks to special days and birthdays (continued)

One additional thing we do at the beginning of the month (when we add special days and birthdays to the calendar) is add birthdays to the birthday cupcake! The birthday kids write their name and the date of their birthday on the cupcake. So if Sally was born on March 4th she would write "Sally 4". I blocked my kids' names, but you get the idea.

The calendar helper then tells us "yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be" by pointing to the days on the actual calendar, and then changes it here:

While the helper is changing it, the rest of the class turns to a neighbor and says "yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be". If they finish before the helper does, we turn to a different neighbor to say it. Now, the special thing about the way we say it is we use popsicle sticks with the following words on them to tell us how to say it:

You can imagine how much more engaging it makes this part of calendar! Click on the document above to download your copy.

5. Days in school tally marks, straws, and stickers/odd and even

After we finish up at the actual calendar, we focus our attention to the right side of the board:

We start off by counting how many days we have been in school using straws.

The helper takes out the straws and we count it as the helper places the straws back into the pockets. I give the stack of extra number cards to another student to find the numeral(s) we will need while we are counting. At the end of counting what is already there, we say "and today makes _____" as the helper puts in a new straw. The child with the number cards then places the appropriate numeral(s) in the pocket(s). Then we all say, "One hundred twenty-four is made of 1 hundred, 2 tens, and 4 ones," with it matching whatever number we are discussing.

Next up is counting the days using tally marks:

(You can probably tell where I made tally marks and the point where the kids started making the tally marks! Ha!)

We bundle every 10 tally marks to reinforce making tens and "counting smart". We also have bundled the 100 tally marks. When we count, we count by 100s, 10s, and then 1s. Sometimes we will count by 10s and 5s or 100s and 5s, etc. At the end of counting, we say "and today makes _____" as the helper puts another tally mark.

Next, we count the days in school using stickers.

We add a new sticker (which are seasonal, of course) at the bottom of the adding tape each day. This not only helps us count the days in school (and practice counting by 2s and 10s) but it also helps us determine odd and even by showing us if each sticker has a partner or not. We also drew lines to group 10s.

Once we know if the number is odd or even, we chart it like so (back in September):

(and now):

We coded the chart with red for odd and blue for even. This helped us see odd and even patterns that occur in numbers. It also helped reinforce what makes a pattern. (If you look at 1 and 2, you will see that we even circled the pattern core.) I DID NOT explain to them about odd and even and the last digit in a number. I let them discover that on their own. A few of them noticed very early on, but we did not really discuss it until the majority of students discovered it (and if you have been following me awhile, you know that I am really big on discovery learning). Once they discovered it, we wrote it down and added it to our calendar board for easy reference:

6. Money

I call a different helper up to for this part (just to switch it up and to pick a good listener).

We count what we have and then add another for the day we are on by saying, "and today makes ______" at the end of counting. You may have read about my classroom management system where my student groups are named after coins. Well, my kids came up with the idea that when we are counting, the group that matches whatever coin we point to needs to stand up. So when we point to a dime, the dime table stands up. They also wanted every one to stand when we point to the dollar. I applauded their thinking and agreed to it! :) I am all for moving around and them taking ownership of and giving input for their own learning!

I will conclude the calendar portion with build the hundreds chart and weather tomorrow and will then move on to math lesson/stations time. Thanks for stopping by!

And if you prefer to download the voice sticks from TPT or TN, then click below! See you tomorrow!

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